We’ve had a stormy few days here in the San Francisco Bay Area with welcome rain. In between breaks in the storm I headed to the coast for sunset. The sun broke out of the clouds for a short time bathing Lighthouse Point, and W. Santa Cruz in glorious sunshine.

I went for a short hike Sunday evening with friends, and found it super cold and windy up in the mountains above the valley floor. There were so many beautiful wildflowers up there, but it was so windy I only made a few images of flowers. Macro photography and wind just don’t play nice with each other.

Nothing to do then, but find a composition and wait for Golden Hour, and hope that the clouds that rolled in don’t block up the sun and we get some color.

My fingers got so cold I couldn’t feel the heat from my hand warmers, and I was having trouble feeling my shutter button. After Golden Hour myself and a friend called it and started back down the hill to the car. About halfway down the colors in the sky popped. I had to stop to photograph it.

I hiked down pretty fast after the sun sunk behind the mountains, and once in my car I cranked the heater as high as it would go, and waited for another friend who drove up with me. She and several others braved the cold and wind further up the trail.

I’m glad I didn’t hike back to the car earlier. I would have missed this!

It’s Theme Week at Monochrome Madness2 and our theme is Clouds. I went back to my archives for an image I made this summer while in Lassen National Park. I went up for the week-end with friends hoping to photograph the night sky’s stars, but clouds rolled in, and with them Lightning. It was Sheet Lightning I think. No bolts were visible at any rate, but the clouds lit up and were amazing.

Instead of photographing stars we chased the storm, and lightning for a couple of hours. Then the sky opened up and poured down rain. We packed up and dashed back to the car, and down the mountain to our hotel wet, but exhilarated.

To see the other submissions to this week’s Monochrome Madness2 go here.

I went up North to Lassen National Park with a side trip to a Lavender Farm, and a fabulous waterfall with good friends. We were hoping to shoot the Full Moon, and later shoot the Night Sky since we’d be in up in the mountains and away from light pollution. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had a different idea. As the afternoon wore on the clouds got thicker, and darker.

On the bright side… It was Spring up in the high country: the Lupine was in full bloom, and the sunset was gorgeous.

This is Lake Helen…very low, but it’s still gorgeous. I said they miss named this Lake because what you really can’t see here is the water is a lovely inky blue.

Shortly after this image was made there was lightning to the southeast! We rarely see it here so we chased it. It was fun!

I’ll be catching up with all you did this past week, and sharing more from my week-end in upcoming posts.